1DollarScan HQT Option/ISBN Requirement

[dandelioncottage]

I'm getting ready to send my first order to 1DollarScan, and was wondering about their High Quality Touch Up Option (HQT).

I already own Abbyy FineReader Express for Mac, so I was planning on just ordering a PDF and doing the OCR myself. Is there any real advantage to HQT? (The pages do not appear to be crooked.)

Is scanning at 300 dpi the optimal choice for OCR'ing in FineReader?

Thanks for the help!

[Toxaris]

I personally use 400dpi. I find the results are a lot better without the files getting too big.

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

I personally use 400dpi. I find the results are a lot better without the files getting too big.

But 400 dpi is not an option that they offer. The problem is, there is no general answer to the 300 vs. 600 dpi question, it depends upon the individual book (font type, font size, print quality, paper quality). From my experience, 300 dpi will usually suffice -- that is, most of the OCR errors you'll have with 300 dpi you'll also have with 600 -- but with some books, 600 dpi may make a difference.

I have no experience with 1dollarscan's HQT, but from their "Pricing" page I think this includes OCR? Since HQS (600 dpi scan without OCR) costs the same $2 per 100 pages surcharge as HQT, I suppose this means that they use 300 dpi even for their "Highest quality OCR"?

There is also a difference between color or grayscale on the one hand and B/W on the other, but, again, this may make not much difference with the result. (bookscan.us scans in 300 dpi B/W by default, and my results so far were not worse than with 1dollarscan's 300 dpi color scan.)

Other things to consider (apart from costs): how important is file size economy to you, and, do you want to read the scanned PDFs themselves?

It might be a good idea to try it out yourself, with a few pages of a few different books? And if you do, please let us know about the results!